Orange County

CalMatters talked to volunteer poll workers and full-time staff in the aftermath of November’s contentious election to see how their work differed from past elections. Election staff Tiffany Nevarez, Enedina Chhim and Roxana Castro say they enjoyed problem-solving their way past this year’s hurdles in Orange County.

Pet videos populate Facebook all the time, but one posted during this frenzied election season stood out: A service dog named Maggie Magoo had voted by mail in Santa Cruz, its owner said. Not just that, the owner claimed Maggie was registered to vote using her microchip number as a social security number.  The story, […]

They’re everywhere. They last forever. They’re dangerous. They’re expensive to remove. And many Californians don’t even know they’re drinking them.

Two years ago, Democratic newcomers across the state were swept into Congress atop a frothing “blue wave” of anti-Trump fervor — a result that only became apparent late in the vote count. This year’s election has been playing out a little like 2018 in reverse.  This time the Democrats led early on, only to see their […]

A study in Orange County reveals a higher prevalence of COVID-19 in minority communities and shows the disparities in health care.

Once a bastion of California Republicanism, Orange County is now purple with a stubborn conservative streak.

California still must count 4.5 million ballots, a bigger job than what it faced two days after the election in 2016.

Despite limited testing requirements, California schools that have reopened for in-person instruction have largely avoided COVID-19 outbreaks. Still, some teachers and legislators say large scale surveillance testing is necessary to the rest of the state’s schools and that lack of data is a problem.

Vertiginous blue spires on the urban coast and crimson plateaus stretching from the Central Valley to suburban SoCal — this is the presidential race for California cash, in 3D. In the map below, each ZIP code is colored according to the candidate who amassed more individual contributions from its residents. That’s blue for former Vice […]

Standing in line at their local polling place, a longtime ritual for many Californians, will be a thing of the past this Election Day for half of the state’s voters.  That’s because in 2016 the California Legislature passed the Voter’s Choice Act, which allows counties to transition from polling places to a vote center and […]